Common Application Essay - What lead me to my goal?

So i guess this fits under topic of choice. just grammer feedback or story feedback, ANY feedback would be appreciated. thank you.
PS; conclusion is bad, im a little stuck on it.
Pss:i dont know what to title this really

Ever since I was the age of six I have known that I was going to grow up to become a doctor. This is simply because I was informed at that age that doctor fit the requirements I had already set forth- to help people. As I left middle school I came to the conclusion that heart surgeon was the track to go down, and since then it has been the only profession that I see myself doing.

As a child I didn't grow up with all the things that some kids can take for granted. Dinner was usually potatoes and tuna with maybe beans on Friday, toys weren't abundant in my house, and my mom was busy most days working to support us so she couldn't play with us. One thing I did have however was television, every day I used to sit and watch things like X-Men and power rangers, how people who were different used what made them different or special to help people and make a difference. I wanted to be like them, I wanted to help, and people had already told me I was especially smart, so why shouldn't I use this specialness about me to help people? Thanks to my intelligence I already knew that there was no such thing as super powers and power rangers, but I also knew that I could still help people without them, I just had to find out how.

It used to bother me that my mother was unable to spend a lot of time with us, I wanted to talk with her and ask her things like how to help people without super powers and what she thought of my pictures, but it wasn't that bad since my sister took her place when she wasn't there. My sister would hear out my thoughts and help me sort out what I wanted, even though at that age all I knew was that I wanted to help people and make a difference, like Professor X in X men who took all mutant kids to his place to train them so they can help people. My sister told me of careers as a teacher or leader or politician, but none of this fit right to me, so she suggested other professions like lawyer or architect since I liked to draw and was good at arguing, and then doctor. I asked for details on them and how hard they would be, being a little kid a lot of work wasn't appealing to me, so she explained how difficult it would be and that the rewards were well worth the work and after a couple of minutes I decided that I would become a doctor.

Middle school was a tough time for me since I didn't fit in with most students. Back then most of the students wanted to be famous like P Diddy or Shaq, whereas I just wanted to be a doctor like the ones on the commercials happily helping the injured. When kids in my class knew all the new and "in" dance moves and song lyrics, I knew the precise moment to snap my fingers and sing along to the Addams family theme song, when parents didn't allow kids to go out they would lie or sneak out to hang with friends, while I would stay at home with my sister talking or trying to figure out the big words in stories I didn't understand. But when I was in eighth grade I had a wonderful English teacher who asked me one day which type of doctor I wanted to be, a surgeon or a diagnostic? I wasn't aware that there were different types so naturally I went home and asked my sister, she explained both types and what they do. Surgeons seemed more hands on so I picked that one; my sister also explained that you can specialize in a field and told me of heart surgeons and brain surgeons who were the hardest two. Brain surgery sounded cool and I did like the brain but I decided on the heart because I follow my head so much I thought I should follow a heart too sometimes.

Time has passed since those days yet my ultimate goal still stands tall. True other things have been flitting through my mind that do distract me from time to time, but its only fleeting, after all I have many more years to worry about finding my own Gomez Addams and having my own little Wednesday and Pugsley to take care of. Until those goals are reached I am happy to stay on the track to becoming a heart surgeon and helping people just like the heroes on television did.

This is an earnest and evocative story. I'd like you to tell it more concisely, leaving in all of the details (which are wonderfully specific), but leaving out extraneous words and phrases. For example, you could cut the first paragraph, since everything in it is said elsewhere in the piece.

Also, you might want to show some awareness that, as you pursue this goal, it may shift. While in medical school, for example, you might find that you have an especial aptitude or interest in some other type of surgery or aspect of medicine. I hope that, in that instance, you would feel free to follow your special talent rather than hewing to a choice made as a child.

As for title, how about, "following my heart"? Or, is that too trite?

thank you for the advice ill try to make it more concise, as far as the first paragraph goes ill go looking to see how to do a good intro because i dont know if i can do that good of one right off the bat.

when you say show some awareness into the fact that things might change should i include another paragraph describing or just put in info to show awareness? im not sure about how the readers of it will like it but i fear making it too long that it counts against me.

following my heart? ill ask my sister and see her advice on titles too.

thank you very much for the comments i really appreciate it.

I love it! Your essay has this distinct personality about it that everyone tries so hard to make their essay have. And you did it so effortlessly.

Your sentences are sometimes a little too long, but that can easily be fixed later. Do all your structural revisions first and then I am sure people will help with the little grammar things here and there.

I agree with Simone, just cut out your first paragraph. You don't need to write a new intro--your second paragraph works well as an intro.

The way you decided to become a doctor, and specifically a heart surgeon, are pretty straightforward and sudden for an essay. So like Simone said, you should explain a bit how even if your track shifts a little it will always be your goal to ultimately help people in the field of medicine (or something like that). Maybe work it into the concluding paragraph where you explain that other things have flitted through your mind? I think you could even say it in a line or two, you don't have to worry about restructuring the entire essay to put this bit in; but it would be a helpful addition.

This is an excellent, distinct, sincere piece of work. :)

How thoughtful of you. Most people look at superheroes and wish that they could fly or blow up stuff. :]

Watching superheroes is your initial motivation when you were six but I would like to see another thing that pushed you even further towards recognizing your goal to become a surgeon.

I thought this essay was just alright. Perhaps, not as great as the other posters seem to think it is. I think it is because of your occassional grammar mistakes, your introduction, and certain parts of your essay that I thought were ineffective.


^Well, this is not quite the effective analogy between yourself and superhoeroes. Superheroes have specialpowers. You were told that you were especiallysmart. Superheroes also use their special powers to combat evil and protect civilians. So if you wanted to be like them, and help just like they did, that would imply that you would be using your 'superpowers', or your 'intelligence', to ward off evil and keep civilians protected. I personally, am not quite feeling this. I would understand if the six year old version of yourself that you describe in this essay said this, but as a matured person? Unless, you want to say that this is how you thought as a six year old. Then again, the 'ive dreamt about doing this since I was a child' card comes into play.


^Thanks to my intelligence? And also 'superpowers'? It may exist in some people and some remote communities in the world, but perhaps not the type of super powers depicted in the media.


^Professor X took in mutants and trained them to help people. This type of 'help' is different to 'helping people' by protecting them and saving lives. This type of help is giving shelter and amenities. This is pretty much charitable help.

It seems that your definition of helping people is quite unclear.


^I do not see why you mention the Professor X thing in that case, because clearly you mention how he helped people because you thought it was a positive example. Despite it being a positive example on helping others, you say that you do not want to be a teacher or a leader, even though you say Professor X trained them, therefore making him a teacher, and everyone knows that he is a leader as well.

Thats not all. But that is it for now :p

I

wow ok so now that the anxiety of getting liebe's comment is out, i must say im glad for it. thanks so much for the critiques, i have as much respect for your comments as i do fear of them. I shall get to work on it, i didnt notice the professor x thing.

i was trying to communicate like when i saw x men and stuff yes they did blow up stuff but i used to see it as the way that they helped each other out in that building. like when jean would have problems with her powers or rouge they would run to proffesor x or wolverine and try to get help/ have it fixed, as i grew up i saw being a doctor as the same thing so i chose to be a doctor over being a leader/teacher because i wanted to be the one they ran to in pain not in confusion of a subject. ill try to clear that up in my essay.

Haha Liebe. This person has 3 posts on this forum and he already anticipates your infamous feedback. Impressive.

teehee verdad

and for your future writing, your sentences are, what i think, run-ons.
it makes the story seem to go on and on, when really that is not what you are doing. become friendly with semicolons and periods ;)

good luck!

^It is not 'infamous' as much as it is popular :)

It has its infamous qualities. ;]

Of just being too damn good. Shockingly good.

As Liebe explained at length, the essay suffers from rooting your decision to be a doctor in a childish decision to go into a field where you could help people. The problem is that helping people is a very broad category, and it seems likely that anyone working just about any job and doing it well likely helps someone out in someway. What made you want to help people out in the specific ways that doctors help others? At the moment, you say it is because your sister told you it would be the least work intensive option. Hopefully by now you know that your sister was wrong, and that a career in medicine is one of the most intensive courses of study you could possibly choose to pursue. So, why do you want to be doctor, when there are also sorts of easier ways to help people? A police officer, a social worker, a teacher, etc. all help people, and all require much less effort, both to train for and as day-to-day occupations. You need to explain your motives in more depth for the essay to be really suitable for admissions officers to peruse.

oh my sister didnt tell me it was the easiest course. im sorry if that wasnt clear im trying to fix it. she told me it was probably the hardest things to choose, as far as social worker/police officer goes I was never asked those ones. I never even really thought of those as professions for me. she did suggest teacher, but I didnt like the idea. thanks for the critiques.

goodness i really didnt see how broad/vague this essay was, im glad i put it here.

Oh, I see what you mean now. I glossed over part of your original sentence. Still, the larger point remains -- you need to expand on what about being a doctor specifically appeals to you, beyond the "helping others" aspect of it, given how many other options would meet that criteria.

I think that its admirable that you knew your career from such a young age, but I think that it's also somewhat unbelieveable that you weren't swayed away by other career options. If you were, then explain those, and explain how overcoming those options helped you decide and confirm on becoming a heart surgeon.

If you weren't swayed, then talk about how everything you've done in high school, all your classes, your extra curriculars-- how everything fit into this perfect mold of what's needed to be a doctor. You may also want to discuss exactly what makes you want to be a doctor. "Helping people", although true, is kind of sappy.

^I disagree. The author only needs to include specific reasons as to why he or she wants to provide the type of help that doctors give. Maybe the author was swayed by other options but the reader will know that becoming a doctor is the author's true aspiration anyway. You don't have to "overcome" different career options, you only have to find one that is more suitable than the rest. Giving a list of would be careers and then stating why each one is worse than becoming a doctor does nothing for the essay.


Helping people is not sappy. The author only has to narrow this down so that readers can tell why the author wants to help people as a doctor rather than a garbage man for example.


The author does not need to have these classroom/extracurricular event experiences to prove his compatability.

Perhaps I am deprived but potatoes, tuna, and beans sounds delicious as well as nutritious.


Your essay is more than 1400 words long. I am frightened.

You don't have to mention your mother not being there for you separately. You can just simply state that your sister was replacement for your constantly busy mother. You can actually just take out your mother out from this essay.


Again, professor x doesn't help people like a doctor does. If cartoon characters like Jean and Wolverine do not go to doctors for help, especially since Wolverine is basically immortal.

I truely believe that this paragraph is unnecessary because it is just making everything so much more complicated and annoying to read. I told you that as long as you can justify your resolve you become a doctor you do not need to use this.

You can condense this paragraph also. Your experience with your teacher really does nothing to you. The class laughs at you, the teacher doesn't understand you, and you come out of it without any reaction. After the ordeal, you look up types of doctors, which seems to have nothing to do with the rest of the paragraph.


This has got to be the longest sentence I have ever seen.

i thought i remember wolverine going to professor x for help with his like emotional issues or something like that. I know they dont go to doctors but they went to SOMEONE for help and that was professor x. i guess it didnt matter so much that it was Professor X so much as it was the relationship of it all. someone needs help and goes to someone respected and well educated. im not sure how to convey the professor x thing. i always saw him in a certain way that didnt make it relate to teachers but doctors. should i just change it?

im sorry for the long sentances. i have problems making short sentances for some reason.

Oh dear. The essay has become worse. You are being perhaps a bit too honest and detailed, here. The problem is that precious little of what you say makes you seem like a good candidate for admissions, which is what you want this essay to do. You say you considered a lot of different careers, which is not unusual, but your process of settling on training to be a doctor seems sort of childish. You started out being inspired by a movie based on a comic book, narrowed down your focus after you felt your teacher didn't believe in you, and picked your ultimate specialty because of a bad pun. You also mention that you have tried other things, but given up on them after seeing that they didn't appeal as much as you expected. This doesn't inspire great confidence in you, and seems off-topic given that being a fashion designer is in no way related to being a doctor. Try starting over, but this time, decide what you want the essay to say about you. What quality or set of qualities do you want the reader to see in you after they have finished reading it? Then, figure out the best way to make that happen.

ok so ill try again then. maybe i was trying to hard and not focusing so much on the essay itself. thanks for the comment, ill work on it.

Your essay is mega long Lolit.

It gets boring after the first few sentences, and I was discouraged to read any more of it. I skim read, and my basic observation is that you do a lot more explaining, rather than, perhaps, narrating or discussing. It lacks those personal qualities to present yourself as a candidate.

I liked the first version. However, I agree with simplifying some points that drew your interest in becoming a doctor; break-down your sentences to describe each event along the way. I like the idea of writing as a child in the beginning, but it would be nice if your last couple of paragraphs showed a more matured transition to having conviction. You don't just want to help people through the eyes of an aspiring child, but an inspired adult that has seen reality and participated in it. IMHO.

yeh dont mention things to make it sound like people will pity you. i like the references to the adams family in the end. gives it character